An update about my life #2

𝐋𝐞𝐭'𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐞 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐦𝐲 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭! 

𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐈 𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐈 𝐜𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐙𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐠𝐠𝐥𝐞𝐬. 

𝐍𝐨𝐰 𝐈 𝐚𝐦 𝐠𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐚𝐧 𝐮𝐩𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐈 𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐙𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝!

#5 ：𝑱𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒏𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒈 

I started Journaling when I moved to New Zealand. Don't get me wrong but I am a person who loves stationery but I never wanted to do fancy journaling —— yup that's what I call it. In fact, the main reason why I stopped myself from fancy journaling is that I can't doodle, draw or hand letter. My perspective towards fancy journaling is to fill your spreads with really nice drawings and decorate them. I am very bad at decorating spreads or layering them out nicely.

However, one night when I was scrolling YouTube, something struck my mind that led me to search up "stationery haul" videos on YouTube. Immediately I found a community that was so similar to me, as if I've found a new planet, with species so similar to me —— 𝙪𝙝𝙝𝙝 𝙬𝙚𝙡𝙡 𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙚𝙧𝙮 𝙗𝙚𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨? I saw so many videos, penpal videos, journaling videos, haul videos, plan with me videos, argh! My mind went crazy after that and I binged watched a whole lot of videos related to stationery. Then, it finally gave me the motivation to start my own journal! I bought my journals at Whitcoulls, a national bookstore in New Zealand and I got them for a discounted price! I loved my grid journal and because I started journaling, I began learning ways to hand lettering. I started my first try during August and successfully implied hand lettering into my journal spreads by the end of 2019. I am really proud of what I have achieved especially when it's something I used to fear a lot, but now I have overcome the struggles of hand lettering! I am still improving of course and trying out different fonts!

Time to unlock something during days of unemployment!   


#6 ：𝒀𝒐𝒖𝑻𝒖𝒃𝒆

After starting my own journal, there were days where my mind kept bugging me with thoughts about starting my own YouTube channel. I am really interested in YouTube but there are pros and cons to it. Pros meaning I'll be able to share my own stationery collection to the community without afraid of being judged since I am a person who loves to share. Secondly, if I fulfill the requirement, I'll be able to monetise my channel and earn a bit from YouTube but that's like something that won't happen so soon, I thought to myself, so I focused on delivering content.

Cons, I am afraid of revealing myself in the videos and I had worries about whether I needed to show my face in my videos.  Secondly, will people who disliked me from my previous communities find out about my channel and start hating me for something I didn't do wrong? Third, I really don't want too many people to know of my YouTube channel, will I be able to hide it perfectly? *I have my reasons for this, please don't judge me*. Forth, will I really be free from people who used to judge me? Or will people find out about my YouTube channel and continue to judge whatever I do since the contents I put up on my channel aren't really topics liked by many people as some people thought stationeries are boring.

However, I followed my heart and started my YouTube channel on October 20th and posted my first video on October 29th. I really sucked at videography back then but I did slowly improve. But, because I was only living in a small room, with cramped space and dim lightings in the room to film, I decided to stop after my first video until I can find a place with better lighting and a bigger space to film my next video. Yes, I have my own rules for my videos now that I want my videos to be better.

By February, luck came to me as YouTube's algorithm started to hit me hard on my channel. One of my videos "What's in my backpack" blew up within a night. It took me months to even get it to 250 views and now it has blown up to 550, 1K, 5K, 10K views, and up till May, it has reached over 400K views in total for just one video. That's when I realised my channel is fit for monetisation as I have fulfilled the requirements! Now, this is considered very lucky since my channel is only 3 months old. On March 10th, I applied for monetisation and on March 14th I successfully monetised my entire channel! How blessed I am and by then I had already accumulated up to 5K subscribers! I couldn't believe everything happened so quickly and just because of one video, I rose from 300 subscribers to 5K subscribers in just a short period of time.

It's May now, and I have reached 13K Unicorns (my subscribers) on my channel and have earned some extra income through my channel! I couldn't be more grateful for this to happen! As of now, I am a freelance YouTuber I think since I am not earning anything apart from YouTube. Besides, I've also gotten my first collaboration and sponsorship from some businesses and I really thank them for trusting me! Everything has escalated to a peak season for my YouTube channel! At this time of my life, where I was rejected in society, I still had something to rely on, at least!


#7 ：𝑴𝒐𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐 𝒂 𝒏𝒆𝒘 𝒂𝒄𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒐𝒅𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 (𝒄𝒍𝒐𝒔𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒊𝒕𝒚!!)

Remember when I mentioned I had a cramped space and dim lighting to film my videos? I moved to a new place last year November. I am truly blessed for the places me and my boyfriend moved into. The rent is the same as our previous one, but this time we live in the city and it takes less than 10minutes to walk to the city! It's so convenient that we don't even need to take the bus to the city anymore! Not only we are situated in the city, we now live in a serviced apartment, which also means there's a receptionist to help collect our parcels and mails! Receiving parcel has been my nightmare in the past where I couldn't find a place for me to collect them but now I don't have to worry anymore. Both of us rented a studio, and to us, it's a huge one for the same price as our previous room but this time it's a STUDIO not A ROOM! I can't help but to say, it's the studio of my dreams!

We can fit 2 desks, one for me and one for my boyfriend, a sofa, a queen-sized bed, a built-in closet, bathroom, and kitchen, and also there's an area for us to store our luggage and extra items! Back in my Airbnb, we stored some of our luggage and items in the balcony and at the corner of the living room area. But now we have a whole lot of space to store our items and I couldn't be happier than ever! I brought a lot of things over from Malaysia so I needed additional spaces to store them! Also, I finally have my own desk! Our previous room was so small that it couldn't even fit a desk so I had to journal on the floor but now I have me own desk, it felt like my little leisure corner where I do most of my stuff here, including watching YouTube videos, journal, video editing and it sometimes turned into my dining area. We do have our own balcony but we dry out clothes outside now instead of putting our extra luggage outside.

It's 5 and a half months since we moved in and I love it here! I don't think I'll ever move out of this place. Perfect location, perfect room, perfect place to receive parcels and a perfect spot for me to do anything I want without having to worry about disturbing my landlord.


#8  ：𝑪𝑶𝑽𝑰𝑫-19 

My job search journey has been very tough ever since I came to NZ but it became even worse when COVID-19 hit globally. Since the employment rate has decreased and people losing their jobs, it's really hard to even get a job considering there are many locals who don't have a job. My challenges have grown to another level where I have to deliver a strong CV and cover letter in order for my job applications to be noticed but sadly, I have been turned down a lot. I am now relying on my own savings and cash is running out on me. I have to do something before my work visa expires, I mean, I spent a lot of time and effort getting this visa though, it wasn't just an "apply-and-go" visa. I had to fight my way through thousands of applicants who applied throughout the world, to only make it to the top 300 applicants. It has been months since the COVID-19 incident and I have to say New Zealand has done a great job during this difficult time.

We started our lockdown by end of March, and we are now freed from quarantine by April 27th. Our cases dropped from over 1000 cases to now less than 200 cases. Although we don't get any outside food from restaurants during our quarantine but I know the government has its own reasons for doing so and I respect their decision. All I have to say is good job to NZ's PM for controlling the outbreak!


𝑪𝒐𝒏𝒄𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏

I guess I'm done with my post. Don't get me wrong, even when it's tough finding a job in New Zealand, I still love it here! I love the ambiance of this country, I love the culture and the weather here, I love how life is at its own slow pace. I feel refresh and overjoy. I find myself at ease ever since I arrived in New Zealand and it's something I wouldn't discover when I visited other countries. I want to stay on for as long as I can, I don't want to leave this beautiful country so soon but with that being said, I have to find a job first. I really don't mind if it's a contract job or a part-time job at some retail industry or not, I just need a job to survive and live my life here. I've enjoyed too much of New Zealand and I really need to move on with reality.

An update about my life #1

𝐎𝐤𝐚𝐲 𝐬𝐨 𝐈 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐈 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐚𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐲 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐠 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐭𝐨𝐨 𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫'𝐬 𝐅𝐞𝐛𝐫𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟗 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐦𝐲 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐲

𝐒𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐧, 𝐚 𝐥𝐨𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐦𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞 

𝐎𝐟 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞, 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞

𝐒𝐨 𝐈'𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐈 𝐝𝐨 𝐚 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐮𝐩𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞. 

#1 ：𝑷𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒂𝒄𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒂 𝒏𝒆𝒘 𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒐𝒇 𝒎𝒚 𝒍𝒊𝒇𝒆

2 months after my surgery, I got an email from NZ immigration stating that I was granted a Job Search Visa —— 𝙎𝙞𝙡𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙁𝙚𝙧𝙣 𝙑𝙞𝙨𝙖 to work in New Zealand. My gosh! Things had never gone so well in my life before and it was like a dream come true! I had been applying for this visa for the past few years and I can't believe I got it last year! Sadly, I'm the last batch of applicants to receive this visa. They discontinued the visa in 2020. 

I had a job back then, a Content Writer cum Translator at a local mobile applications company in Penang, Malaysia, and had to send in a resignation letter to my boss during May so that I could have time to pack my belongings or tidy my room. I resigned on June 16th I think, and had about 14 days to pack everything I wanted to bring to NZ, brought a lot of stuff to Poslaju every single day. If I'm not mistaken, the total of my parcels were about RM2000++ or more cuz there were 7 boxes to ship to NZ and they are heavy, of course, I had 20KG of baggage weight to bring along with me. 

I arrived in New Zealand on July 1st. To be honest, I didn't expect myself to enter NZ that early, I was aiming for August or so but I suddenly found a cheap flight on June 30th that was about RM1700++ and they only had promotion ON THIS DAY. So I and my mum came to a conclusion that I'll take this flight, considering other flights were RM3000++ and above. My colleagues came to send me off on the day of departure, sending me gifts and wishes, I was really blessed they came to send me off cuz I didn't felt alone! 

#2  ：𝑳𝒊𝒇𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝑵𝒆𝒘 𝒁𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒅

After about 18 hours flight, and a 3 hour transit in Singapore's Changi Airport, I finally arrived on July 1st. My boyfriend came to pick me up, and got me loads of my favorite things upon arrival. He made me a huge welcome board, brought me Brown Rice Green Tea and noodles in case I was hungry. In fact, I was indeed hungry after a long flight! 

We then took a Skybus to our accommodation, it was an Airbnb place my boyfriend has rented for about 3 years and we lived with our landlord as we only rented a room. The room was pretty small I'll have to be frank but the entire place is so clean and our landlord never asked us to clean the toilet lols. He cleaned it all by himself! Really impressive! 

So my first 2 months in New Zealand was like a holiday for me. I wanted to take a break from the hustle and bustle in my previous working days. I worked non-stop ever since the day I graduated so I thought I deserved a break since I'm in a country, a new place that is so stranger to me. I wanted to explore and get used to this place before I get going with my job search. However, things didn't go that well for me after the 2 months break. 

#3 ：𝑱𝒐𝒃 𝑺𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒄𝒉

I underestimated everything. I thought I'll be at advantage to find a job here considering I'm multilingual. Everyone in Malaysia told me that I'll get a job real soon as long as I know 2 languages, at least. I was wrong. It's May 2020 now and I still haven't gotten a job. I went for several interviews but I was turned down. I applied for jobs at various companies and some never even contacted or turned me down before I even went for an interview. I guess this is the difference between finding a job in NZ and in Malaysia. You'll get turned down before even going for an interview. I mean, back in Malaysia, employers will try to have a meeting with you to see if you're fit to work during the interview. I was shocked. I never got the chance to go for an interview and I was already turned down. 

#4 ：𝑪𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝑳𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓

Okay peeps, this is the part where confusion hits me hard, just like in the Pokemon movies. I didn't know we needed a cover letter until I applied for my first job. Like back in Malaysia, we only required a CV or a Resume when applying for a job, so I've never really bumped into a situation where a cover letter is needed. Obviously, I didn't know what to write in a cover letter and was unsure about the professionalism of a cover letter. This was one of the obstacles I've met during my job search. 

I joined a job search workshop near my Airbnb and I met so many new people there and we're even friends till today. I asked. Is it very hard to get a job in New Zealand? Many of them answered yes. My heart sank when I knew some of them couldn't even get a job after 9 months or a year. They told me that I am quite new to this country so it's normal if I didn't have a job yet, so they told me to not be disappointed with myself about this issue. I just couldn't. I've never had such a long break in my life. There's this Chinese saying that goes "话不能说得太早" which means do not speak too early of yourself. I did want to take a break upon my arrival in NZ right, I got what I wanted but there was no turning back. I lost to my job searches, I lost to earning my first income in NZ but what I didn't lose was, my relationship. I finally ended my 3 years of long-distance relationship. It was hard but worth it! 

Speaking of "long-distance", I am going to stop here since it's getting pretty long-winded and I have a few more parts to go. 𝗜 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝘂𝗽𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺 𝗶𝗻 𝗺𝘆 𝗻𝗲𝘅𝘁 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁, 𝘀𝗼 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘆 𝘁𝘂𝗻𝗲𝗱 ! :D